The boat was equipped after a most farmerly and unseamanlike fashion, with a little snub mast raking forward, like that of a Mediterranean felucca, and stepped right amidships; a queer fore-and-aft mainsail, whose boom was cocked up at an impertinent angle twenty degrees greater than that of the gaff; a great staysail running to the boat's stem, and a jib hoisting outside of that to a stumpy bowsprit. This, however, or none; so we entered with good courage and no provision, the route being straight and clear, and the northwest breeze fair and strong. We could not fail, said tall Mr. Coe, to reach our destination by noon or a little later.

sheet in the other, I have steered all day straight | his pantaloons: which is the custom of the Musout to sea in a twelve-foot boat, or wandered covites, and was the custom of Senator Nathaniel hither and thither in the watery labyrinth of isl- Macon, of North Carolina, "on the principle," and and bay along the rugged and deeply-in- says Senator Benton of him, "that leather is dented sea-coast of Connecticut. To perfect stronger than cloth." pleasure three things were requisite. I must be alone; the boat must be small; the wind must be high. Alone, I was the sole intelligence and power. The smaller the boat the quicker her answer to every voice of the wind, to every heave of the waves, to every touch of the helm; and therefore the more complete my cognizance of the wild dancing vagaries and stormy assaults of the forces with which I contended, and of the decisions and movements by which I ruled them. The smaller the boat and the higher the wind, also, the greater the sense of daring and of victory with which I held her wet and foamy bows straight and steadily against the steep ascent of the roaring white-crested seas, or watched the little cataract foam along the lee gunwale, as she bowed far and farther over, down to her bearings, before some heavier squall, or leaped down the long slope into the deep black valley between the billows.

Our equipment, however, had occupied some time; and the sun was already high when we slid gently forward from the shore over water mirror-smooth except for little ripples that here and there roughened the surface; for houses and trees kept off the wind which yet sang softly to us in the lofty boughs. Quietly we glided down the widening bay, and the fantastic wind-chant in the tree-tops grew louder and louder, and came down and sang in our scanty rigging too. We passed by an opening in the woods. Out of it a squall flew at us instead of a song, and snapped our brittle boom. We bore up, and making fast to a log, amputated a tough segment from a hickory "staddle" (i. e., a tree-let; as much of a tree as a lad is of a man) with a sheathknife; "fished" the fractured spar, and once more set sail.

It was my glory to sail straight out into the face of great white fogs that came trooping up from the far open ocean; driving out to windward in my crank boat under all sail, until the clumsy sloops and schooners that tumbled along up and down the coast were single-reefed or double-reefed. Then-for I did not like the implication of submission involved in laying to and reefing down-to go about, not as unable to remain longer at sea, but assuming that it comported with my convenience, irrespective of atmospheric phenomena, to return home precisely then; the boat tearing back dead before the wind, leaping with eager thrills and tremblings in the peculiar swaying curves of such a course; the long boom lifting and lifting with the roll, even to the imminent risk of "jibing," and of certain consequent capsize; a great white fur-wailing voices in the distant tree-tops, but the row-slice of roaring foam whirling backward on either hand from the sharp prow, and limiting the widening track of boiling water astern.

Yet one of the most imminent of my perils by water was incurred far inland, within the girdle of mountains that look down upon Winnipiseogee.

Under the shadow of the Red Mountain, at Senter Harbor at the head of the lake, Harry and I found a whale-boat, an old ocean rover, well experienced in the perils of Arctic and Antarctic seas; now come inland as if to abide through its declining years amidst the lovely scenery and mild fresh-water dangers of Winnipiseogee. This ancient mariner we caused to be launched, cleansed, and refitted; and in this we determined to set forth down the lake for Cow Island, there and thereabouts to fish, taking sailing directions from our well-booted landlord, Mr. Coe. Well booted, I mean, as the Greeks were-εὐκνήμιδες Αχαιοί-not as the rascals were; of which condition our certificate was patent in the garments themselves, which he wore long and large, and eke on the outside of

Between two wooded promontories we passed forth upon the main waters of the lake, blue and clear, all studded with islands, and now darkened by the innumerable ripples that rose beneath the northwest breeze. We could hear no longer the

song among our cordage was louder, and a light organ-bass answered, bubbling and rustling from beneath the sharp prow. The water-spirits were joining in the song, and taking their part in charge of us.

66. Hallo, the boat!"

Across the wind the shout came faintly, like
an air-voice. It was from a live Yankee, how-
ever, who stood at the edge of an islet to the
eastward, to our left-technically a little abaft our
larboard beam-and brandished his fins at us.
What need for haste? We had the day before
us. Moreover, he might be in distress, or desir-
ous to share with us a treasure-trove.
So we
turned aside and ran over to him.
"Well ?"

"Goin' to Meredith Bridge?"
"No. Why?"

"Wa'al, there was a boat was to call and take me down, and they ha'n't come, and I didn't know but you was them."

"Suppose," I said to Harry, "we take him part way ?"

senger upon the island?

"Merrily, merrily, bounds the bark,
She bounds before the gale,

The mountain breeze from Ben-na-darch
Is joyous in her sail.

With fluttering sound, like laughter hoarse,
The cords and canvas strain,

The waves, divided by her force,

In rippling eddies chased her course,

He nodded. I offered to set the stranger over | hearts glad within us we passed on, leaving on to the western shore, whence he might walk the either hand islets as numerous and as lovely as rest of the way, since our engagements would King Robert's galley is said to have passed, in not permit us to convoy him to his destination. the racing elastic rhythm of the "Lord of the He thankfully stepped aboard, and heading west- Isles ;" and from it Harry recited: ward we digressed upon our benevolent errand. In the country strangers talk; Yankees talk every where; we talked. How came our pasHe lived there; his own boat it was which he had lent, and which some chance was delaying. Do many people live on the islands? Quite a number; one or two "solid men of Boston" have summer palaces upon them; some farmers live upon them; one, Mr. Weare, quite rich. He goes to Wolfboro' or Moultonboro' in planting time and other busy times, enlists "a crew of work-folks," to use our friend's words, and encamping upon Cow Island they do what is to be done and depart. Where is Cow Island? The Yankee pointed toward it, and we perceived its heights among the multi-tiller and of sheet, to save our flimsy rigging and tudinous island and mainland hills which made the high horizon in the east.

As if they laughed again."

It was afternoon by this time. Still we sped past one islet after another, looking ever for the marks which the Yankee had named to us as of that we sought. The gentle breeze had risen into a strong gale, fitful with the desperate and sudden blasts of overland winds. My boatmanship sufficed for a time, by watchful handling of

keep right-side-up our crank and narrow craft. But not long. One wilder breath of the WindKing, and slap went the misshapen sail down upon the water with an instantaneous wrench that spilled out us two luckless navigators, as one might toss pease out of a shovel, into the cold, dark-blue water. Swimmers both, we sank for a moment, but rising, laughed to each other a sputtering recognition, and unterrifiedly, with half a dozen strokes regained the boat, which had turned first half over and then quite over, and now showed a curved and striated back as of some great fish, above the little spiteful jumping waves.

Thus we beguiled the way with friendly chat. The Yankee told us many marvels of the lake. Weird old Indian traditions of a horrible formless monster that abides within the unfathomable depths of "The Broads," as the largest open stretch of the lake in its southwestern corner is called, and in tempestuous nights comes forth and rides hither and thither upon the dark stormy water, destroying any chance voyager and uttering fearful and unearthly sounds of diabolic exultation. Other less fanciful stories he had of huge lake trout; sullen monsters, also resident within the deepest parts of the lake; It was over against the mouth of an island cunning and proud, a species of fresh-water sea-bay that our mischance happened. So each kings, seldom to be caught, and desperately dangerous to the fisherman's slender armament. He spoke of Rattlesnake Island; a steep, rocky pile, far toward the south, rising sheer from the very deepest portion of the lake, and swarming with the deadly reptiles which give it a name, among whom aboriginal legends tell that "an enormous rattle-tailed snaik"-to use the words of the enterprising proprietor of the Bunkumville Museum-called by the Indians The King of the Rattlesnakes, keeps his reptilian state, and wields many potent charms, being a great manitou or spirit-chieftain.

We reached the shore-with exchange of hearty good wishes, the Yankee stepped within the shadow of the summery woods, and strode away through the underbrush, and again we set off.

The wind was rising continually. Delighting ourselves with the speedy gliding of the sharpprowed whale-boat, reveling in sunshine, in breeze and in water, in youth and health and wandering, we sped onward. To right and left the mountain forms changed and changed; and when we looked again for the island we scarcely found it; and it was further away than we had supposed. But what matter? We had neither "little amount to make up" before three o'clock, nor academic bell to obey at five; and with

with a hand upon the gunwale, we swam strongly toward the haven, leading our capsized boat, like lacustrine Tritons convoying home an overturned sea-chariot of Amphitrite, within its grassy shores. There we found silent water; a small and sheltered harbor floored with pebbles of pure white intermingled with yellow, the jasper and alabaster floor of a water-nymph's bower; walled about and gracefully overhung with the close and waving leafage of birches and beeches, here and there pilastered with a dark columnar spruce; a nook recluse enough for the very bath and dressing-room of the more aristocratic and exclusive naiads. Neither wood-nymph nor naiad fled or spattered away at our appearing; and uncomfortably Tritonizing in soaked and clinging casimere and limp wet felt hats, we swam to the shallows, and with unstable foothold and awkward effort set our tub once more on its own bottom.

Our isle, enchanted, had, as it were, fled before us down the lake. Along the high and hilly eastern shore-line or island-line we could ascertain no locality answering to it. But not nautical enough to compute the distance we had come, and quite doubtful of our place, we at last hoisted sail once more, at a venture, and bore away.

The wind still rose, and scudding at a dan

I felt my hands and limbs benumbing. I knew, moreover, that my lips were blue and ghastly, and my face white and grim; for besides the cold, my thoughts were of drowning, and my seamanship little more than mechanical. I doubted that I looked upon the face of Death; and my consciousness was mostly of the effort to endure the tremendous sight, and hardily to meet his coming blow. A grisly visage it is to see! And whereas I doubted, a few minutes later I was altogether sure-when I saw quite suddenly the line of rugged rocks that ranged along the shore not half a mile before us, and the high breakers that rolled, and foamed, and leaped freakishly about among them. For before that wild gale the wretched boat could nev

gerous rate before it, we passed more islands, more wide expanses of water; and soon, it being now well past the middle of the afternoon, we drove out upon the great southeastern stretch of deep open water called The Broads. As we did so, convinced by this time that we had far overpassed our mark, and satisfied that the distant dusky peaks before us were the mountains around Alton Bay, the extreme southern end of the lake, I turned and looked behind me for one last attempt to distinguish Cow Island. I could not see it; but in the sky I saw something much more startling. Over the line of the western horizon had deployed, within the hour last past, while we were busy with things before us and close around us, a vast and heavy army of black and stormy clouds. Already their whiter and fleecier van-er manoeuvre; and one touch upon those sharp guard had mounted nearly to the zenith, and had obscured the sunlight with a threatening shadow. Great masses of the cloudy host rose out of the northwest and fell down to northward and to southward as if outflanking some hostile array. A sombre and darkening shadow fled swiftly and silently over us, and went curtaining on before over the great open lake. Over Winnipiseogee, "The Smile of God," there lowered a fearful frown. A chill came out of the cloud with the darkness, and wind and cold and shadows swept down upon us together.

and edgy rocks would grind us and our boat into indistinguishable fragments together.

Yet it was better to try something than to drive stupidly into the roaring mill of rock and water. So "Ready, about!" I sang out to Harry. I had taught him the few words of command and simple processes used in "tacking boat." Down went the helm at a desperate venture; and hauling aft the sheet as she came up, I would have brought her upon the wind on the larboard tack, heading due north. But I could not even get the jib aback; she missed stays, and rolled helplessly, broadside on, toward the iron-bound shore. There was nothing for it but to try again, and no alternative except to be smashed if we failed. So getting her before the wind again, I ran straight toward the shore until she gained some headway; once more hauled upon the wind. As she lost way, and was ev

I was feeling the long swells of the great shoreseas, when the roaring crash of the fierce breakers made continuous thunder scarce fifty feet away, and the water was all thick and red around us with earth rasped up from the bottom by the undertow.

What I describe in many words I saw at the single glance which was all I could give; for I had perforce to look forward, and that most instantly, at the risk of death; since here the shore was too distant to reach by swimming if we should overset, and we began to be cold and tired, all wet and hungry as we were. The blasts came leaping ever wilder and high-idently about to miss stays again, I sprang er; the jumping waves, white-capped and foamy, amidships, seized an oar, with quick and desexulted around us, and sang a louder and a perate strokes brought her up into the wind, louder song beneath the prow, as we tore on- until first the jib filled on the other tack and ward into the bosom of the lake. I lacked little then the mainsail. Then I resumed the tiller; of fancying that chuckling water-spirits had and slowly and laboriously, trembling and crackclutched our cutwater, and were dragging using, she crawled off inch by inch, when already forth into their widest waste domain, where they might drown us at their leisure and dance a devilish death-dance over our wet burial. The whale-boat, built not for carrying sail, but narrow, sharp, and totty almost as a bark canoe, careened hither and thither with wild, quick motions, wallowing along dangerously, creaking and straining. The foolish old mainsail flapped and jerked; the boom lifted and wavered as if to jibe, then thrashed madly down upon the foam as if the lee gunwale dipped and a bucketful or two of clear water bubbled alertly inboard; I wonder the lubberly tackle lasted so long. Harry, inexperienced in boat-sailing, thought it all very fine, and from his place forward enjoyed the fantastic movement and the raging of the air and of the water. As for me, although I clenched tiller and sheet with grasp as yet unfailing, and was conscious of no special fear, and still met each shrieking blast and each heavier surge with such seamanship as the clumsy bark permitted, yet, with hunger, cold, and stiffness from the constrained position that I had kept so long,

Slowly and perilously we gained some little offing; and as soon as there was room I tacked once more, and steered, as I was now able to do with the wind on my starboard quarter, southwest, to gain the shelter of the highlands skirting the western side of Alton Bay. This also I had to give up; for we could not bale, I being at the helm, and the weight of both of us neces sary to windward to save capsizing; and halffull of water, she rolled ever deeper, and so heavily and with action, as it were, so sick, and discouraged, and lifeless, that perforce I put her almost before the wind again, and ran down the coast. Yet we did ultimately contrive to weather the point east of the mouth of the bay. The wind lulled as we drew within the shelter of the mountains, although we could hear it howl and

wail far above us, and could look back into the tempest yet raging in the open lake. As we laid the boat against the quiet shore of a sheltered cove far within the depths of the bay, her gunwale was scarce three inches above the water; and stepping across from the stern, I stood over-knees in the midst of her, such a quantity had she received. But we had baffled the water-devils and the storm-king; and, in high spirits at our escape, we turned to and speedily freed her from the dangerous burden.

rolling, roaring sound might be, it came steadily toward us. There was a little haze in the air; the moonlight interpenetrated and infused it; and together they were a great glimmering veil hung from far above down to the dark water; wavering and gleaming, and hiding what it covered with a witch-light more impenetrable than darkness. From behind this gray gleaming curtain came the strange sound that perplexed us. It grew perceptibly louder; we could not see ten rods; whatever the thing should be, we might not be able to discern it in time to get out of its way. The weird, dreamy time and place made me fancy absurd visionary things: of the monstrous water-devil that our passenger had described to us, whom I pictured to myself making a second and definite foray through the night to apprehend the audacious mortals who had escaped his power in the day; of some inexplicable whirlpool, or water-spout, or blast of wind. In vain we said to each other, "What can it be?" I even abjectly proposed to flee to the western shore; and but for shame I verily believe we should have done it. Watching intently, ready to pull either way if any thing should appear suitable to be run away from, we waited, oars in hand, breathless, half-frightened. The roaring voice of the unseen monster, exaggerated by the night stillness, and reverberating heavily through the thick air and the narrow mountain cleft, came swelling out vaster and vaster, yet still behind its inscrutable glimmering veil, until to our startled minds it seemed to be booming up into the air close above our

Evening approached. Leaving the whale-boat at her hidden mooring close beneath a great thicket of evergreens, we scrambled up a steep hill-side, found a road skirting the bay, and set off southward, seeking a supper up among the hills, with the sturdy resolve yet to reach the island for which we had started in the morning by a retrograde moonlight voyaging. The first house we found was a desolate, empty shell, window-shattered, brown, weather-stained, dreary, standing alone, without a tree or a shrub, the earth about it all bare and brown, without a well, or a barn, or a wood-shed-a very ghost of an old house. Within we found an old pair of shoes in a corner, and a rusty broadsword hung against a wall; nothing else-not even a tin pan or a footstool. At the next we found an old man, who said he was eighty-nine, deaf, blind, helpless. His daughter-in-law, the mistress of the dwelling, a skinny and ill-favored dame, could not furnish us a supper. Still we went on; and at the end of another mile we found a more hospitable roof. Here, in a jovial, cozy kitchen, where a great fire in a giantly fire-heads, and we made sure that the invisible explace tempered gratefully the raw evening air of the hills, by the ready consent of a comely young housewife and her broad-shouldered husband, we dried and warmed our weary bodies and wet clothes; did exceedingly rest and refresh our-There were lights and human voices. selves with warmth and firelight, with meat and drink, and with pleasant conversation; and did set out upon our return, due payment made, quite other in body and in mind from the tired, bedraggled, forlorn wayfarers who had come in.

Reaching the whale-boat we pushed off, headed northward, took each an oar, and rowed softly down the bay over motionless water, in the silence due to the still bright moonlight, the sacred quiet of the flood and of the mountains that watched it. The sharp-edged oar-blades passed noiselessly into and from the water; their double-knock within the wooden row-locks sounded hollowly against the dark steep heights above us and echoed back again; the wild landscape, the spiritual power of the night, the dim, impenetrable glimmer of the moon, seemed all together to be passing into some dream.

"Hush!" I said to Harry. We both listened. I had not been mistaken. We could distinctly hear the rush of some large mass through the water, far north in the open lake. I should have said it was a steamboat; but there was none on the lake, although we had seen one building at Meredith's Bridge. We leaned over the edge of the boat and listened. Whatever the hollow,

istence was advancing straight and close upon us.

Suddenly, as if magic had conjured it up, a huge, shadowy, black mass was sweeping past us, up the middle of the bay, toward Alton.

"Hallo the boat!" hailed some one, all at once.

"Hallo yourself! Where bound?" I replied. "Alton," was the answer. It was the horseboat from Wolfboro'.' We extremely quietly re sumed our oars.

In the silent moonlight we rowed northward for an hour. Then sleep began to weigh heavy upon us; for indeed we had had a fatiguing day. Beneath the relaxing pressure of its burden we easily gave up the hope of reaching our intended lodging-place. Looking upon the land to the castward, we discerned a great, dim, square opening among the woods. Turning our prow thitherward, we slowly rowed ashore, made the boat fast to a tree, shouldered our knapsacks, and, stumbling with weariness, and sleep, and the obstructions of the untrodden way, at last we reached the farmstead. Cautiously, with knife in hand, for fear of big dogs, we approached, reconnoitered the premises, found an open barn-door, felt about for the hay-mow and the peg-ladder which usually gives access to its top, found it, ascended, burrowed deep within fragrant herds-grass hay, and slept a chilly, troubled, and unrefreshing sleep.

THE HAVELOCK.

N Southern uplands I was born,
Kissed by the lips of the golden morn;

Strong, and tall, and straight was I,

And my white plumes danced as the wind went by,
Till the hills above and the vales below

Seemed drowned in a mist of drifting snow.

But by-and-by my plumes were stripped
By negroes lusty and dusky-lipped,
And they bore me off to a darksome mill,
With jaws and teeth that never were still;
And there I was mangled and whirled about,
Till it chewed me up and it spat me out.

Bagged and bound with canvas and rope,
I hung on the edge of a dizzy slope,
Till I saw the panting steamer glide
Close to the edge of the terrible slide,
When they pushed me over and let me go,
And swift as a bullet I plunged below.

So down the river they bore me then,
And passed me over to trading men,

And bartered me off, and shipped me to sea,
From the crowded wharf of the long levée;
And so we sailed for many a day,

Till the mud of the Mersey around us lay.

Through dingy factories then I past,
Where flickered the shuttle flashing fast;
And British fingers all wan and thin
With labor, and hunger, and drink, and sin,
Twisted my threads in the fetid gloom,
And wove them close on the whirring loom.

So back to my country I came again,

Fit for the uses of busy men;

And the time went by, till one summer's day

In a beautiful maiden's lap I lay,

While with scissors, and thimble, and needle, and thread

She fashioned me thus for a soldier's head.

For the light of battle was in the sky,
And the armed thousands were hurrying by,
And the brawny farmer and slender clerk
Were side by side in the holy work;

For a wondrous fire through the people ran-
Through maid, and woman, and child, and man.

Ah! 'twas a tender and sorrowful day,
When the soldier lover went marching away;
For that self-same morn he had called her bride,

As they stood at the altar side by side;
Then with one long kiss and a hushed good-by
He went with his comrades to do or die!

To-day I am on the self-same earth

That nourished my parents and gave me birth;
But the waving snow is no longer there,
And muskets flash in the sunlit air,

And the hill-side shakes with the heavy tramp
Of the hostile armies from camp to camp.